The US, UN & Iraq III

Blatham, thanks for the good links. I had read the William Rivers Pitt speech, but not the other links.

I am tired of flags and "God Bless America". Not because I don't love America, but because I am fed up with nationalism at its worst. I was walking into the grocery store the other day and was struck and delighted with a bumper sticker that read: "God Bless the Whole World." The fine print on the sticker told me it was printed by the Quaker Society...we have a very active one where I live and they co-ordinated many of the anti-war marches before the fiasco in Iraq began.

I am ready to start a White Rose Society. For 60 years the white rose has stood as a symbol of principled resistance to tyranny.

How appropriate for these times.

VN, I'm with you all the way. c.i.

Blatham

That was very long reading assignment----only one per week please.

What was your conclusion after reading it?

The three articles were very nice. I recall reading the series when it came out. Why is it that the rest of the world can see the course toward disaster we are headed toward, and Amaericans can not?
Some moments:
The grad student at UCLA and her undergrads...I have been in a similar situation.
The comments by infulential people like George Will,and the deans of the Fletcher School and the KEnnedy school... Why have they not openly voiced their conderns about the loonies in the administration? Living in the United States in the early years of the twenty-first century is like being a passenger in a car headed toward a cliff, whose driver is pressing the gas pedal toward the floor with all his might.

hobitbob, I feel the way you do most of the time about this administration, but "that" cliff is really all imaginary. For all the stupid things this administration got us in to, we're still the superpower of the world. All of Europe can't compare to what we are in both economic and military terms. In political terms, we're at the bottom of the heap, but let's hope this administration gets retired in 2004. Nothing much happens in tihs world unless the US says so - fortunately or unfortunately. It's up to us to make sure the likes of this administration disappears from US/world politics. c.i.

Admiral Stansfield Turner's proud take on US imperialism is unsettlingly risable. It's go-damned harrowing when one considers that this is the way the Administration and most of the U.S. of A. thinks.

"[The U.S. of A. is] best example of free enterprise - and that's the way the whole world is moving. Those who don't go that way will simply be trampled under foot."

And people thought the "red-scare" was frightening.

Maybe the US should try keeping the power on at home first.

Wilso, I did read that some folks in Baghdad suggested that they could send help to the US, that they have lots of experience in trying to restore power.

HobbitBob wrote, in part:



I agree with most of your post here, only part of which I am quoting. I think your second point, however, is not only impractical but dangerous. To hold elections in Iraq at this time would encourage extremist elements to take over. This is country that voted Saddam Hussein in with a 99% vote, remember? They do not know what a free election is, and they surely have not learned in the few months since we colonized the country.

I agree with your third point, but that just ain't gonna happen. And point four is devoutly to be wished, along with wishing that there had been open bidding for the enormous jobs that Halliburton and Bechtel were awarded.

blatham, thanks for the links. In the third one, I found this quote:



I felt exactly that way when I protested the war. People I knew refused to discuss it, so I'll never know if they were intimidated or thought I was unpatriotic. I have often wondered why we were all so afraid to speak up, including our representatives. I noticed, at the march in DC, that there was an air of hopelessness in spite of our placards and chanting and carrying on, a feeling that no one was listening.

I remember (probably from Abuzz) your struggle to get up to that Washington march, Kara!

That Pitt Rivers speech is one of his best, no -- his very best. It was very moving, very tempered, and exactly right. He's a young guy, I believe, and has matured. Thanks, Blatham, for that gem. I remember that reaction to Vietnam vets and even then began to detach from friends who were cruelly and stupidly blaming American victims of that war. The conflict was wrong; the leadership was wrong; the policy was wrong; America was corrupt. That's what we should have been focussing on, not treating returning vets like pariahs. It showed to me that "our side" could behave just as badly and just as stupidly as the "patriots." Unless we get over this black/white thinking, we're doomed to remain in an endless, bitter, debilitating, childish war within America.

Which is where the Quakers come in, VNN. Having grown up among them, worked with them, and retaining enormous respect for their work, I've noticed that their focus now includes the alliance with the devil -- the military industrial complex. There are enclaves of Quakers working to reverse the laws which, even before the Civil War, began to give corporations power greatly exceeding that of the individual citizen -- giving corporations the power to maintain perpetual war, profitable to themselves, erosive of our values and our lives.

Two lines from the September "Harper's Index":

Amount Pat Robertson has invested in Liberian gold mining: $8,000,000.

Number of times he cited the country's leaders as wronged Christians on his TV show while President Bush was in Africa: 3.

This conflict IS wrong, the leadership IS wrong, this policy IS wrong, America IS corrupt.

Hobitbob

With your substantial knowledge of Islam----your comments on Wahhabism would be appreciated.

Saudi Arabia's Teachers of Terror

By Jon Kyl and Charles Schumer
Monday, August 18, 2003; Page A19

The House of Saud has for decades played a double game with the United States, on the one hand acting as our ally, on the other supporting a movement -- Wahhabism -- that seeks our society's destruction. Because of other strategic interests, our government has long indulged the Saudis, overlooking their financial and structural ties to one of the world's most violent terror organizations.


After the attacks of 9/11, President Bush made clear that America would no longer play that game. He said: "Every nation will have a choice to make: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." It is time for Saudi Arabia to make that choice.

Upon its establishment as the nation's ruling family, the House of Saud forged an alliance with the radical Wahhabi sect of Islam. The deal that was struck gave the House of Saud control over political and foreign policy, while the Wahhabis would be free to take charge of the society's religious and cultural institutions.

Recently our subcommittee on terrorism held the first of a series of public hearings on the activities of this Wahhabi sect. The findings were alarming. Wahhabism is an extremist, exclusionary form of Islam that not only denigrates other faiths but also marginalizes peaceful followers of Islam. As witnesses testified, Wahhabism uses mosques and schools, called madrassas, to indoctrinate mostly young people with a hatred of Jews, Christians and traditional Muslims who reject this radicalism. Its goals are world domination and the destruction of its enemies.

Osama bin Laden is a follower of Wahhabism. So were all 19 of the Sept. 11 hijackers. Bin Laden's al Qaeda trained the Taliban in Afghanistan, formed a movement that threatens the government of Pakistan and is the source of terrorist atrocities from Morocco to Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Tanzania, Yemen and Saudi Arabia itself.

The sect has established mosques in the United States and elsewhere in the world. According to federal officials, money collected at these mosques is often used to help finance the Wahhabis' global mission. Followers have developed new ways to recruit supporters in America by seeking out U.S. citizens or persons with Western passports, and infiltrating U.S. prisons and universities.

The Saudi government has conferred dangerous legitimacy on the Wahhabi sect. As Princeton University scholar Bernard Lewis noted: "Without oil and the creation of the Saudi kingdom, Wahhabism would have remained a lunatic fringe." A Treasury Department official testified that Saudi Arabia is often the "epicenter" of funding for terrorist activities.

The House of Saud allows the sect to hand-pick imams to control local mosques and to run the madrassas. The Saudi-controlled media continue to abet Wahhabi teachings by spreading lies about the West. The Anti-Defamation League, for example, has issued a report on the Saudi media's denial of the Holocaust and their charges that Jews run U.S. foreign policy.

It should be noted here that, through an expensive public relations campaign aimed at an American audience, the Saudi government vehemently denies any relationship to the Sept. 11 attackers. It also professes steadfast support for America's war against terrorism. Recently the Saudi ambassador to the United States urged the Bush administration to release classified pages of an intelligence report that allegedly listed Saudi ties to terrorism. He further stated on the Saudi government's Web site that "Saudi Arabia has nothing to hide. We can deal with questions in public."

The Saudi ambassador is right to encourage candor. It is time for the U.S./Saudi relationship to be based on a mutual commitment to eradicate terrorism. That commitment must be unambiguous, and it must include effective efforts by the Saudi government to stop Wahhabi support of terrorism.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) is chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on terrorism, technology and government information. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is a member of the Judiciary Committee.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Wilso, while our leaders have been corrupt and those who blindly support them are aiding and abetting, the country was not conceived through corruption. Oversight should never be the dirty word that some poltiical heads believe it is. At our jobs there is oversight of our performance, in politics they're allowed to be corrupt without much recourse other than one's decision not to vote for them. The Senate and Congress by and large protect their own like the police. Where you see some hand slapping for malfeasance in office, there's a lot that is overlooked. Exactly what does go on behind the scenes was explore in such films as "Advise and Consent," and the upcoming HBO series "K Street" may be very revealing on how our government works. I'd be interested to know how much corruption in government has been uncovered in Australia and I realize you maybe aren't advocating a "hate America" stand but it can obviously look like it.

Light -- Have you noticed that HBO is behaving very responsibly (in my view) on social and political issues? I see they're also launching an "armageddon" series -- or film....

I would hope that everyone who frequents this thread would want to read this article.

IGNORANCE

By RALPH PETERS

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August 18, 2003 -- WE'LL bag Saddam. We'll continue to break down the diehard support for the old regime. And we'll do our best to give the people of Iraq a chance at greater freedom than they've ever known.

But even when the last Ba'athist bullies are rounded up and foreign terrorists tire of achieving martyrdom at our hands, one mighty enemy will remain in Iraq: Ignorance.

It's a foe we cannot defeat with the finest of armies.

Addicted as we are to the buzz of daily developments, it's hard to stand back and recognize that the most powerful long-term threat to success in Iraq doesn't come from gunmen, but from the inability of many Iraqis to interpret events accurately.

We take for granted the ability to separate fact from fiction, to identify that which looks, feels and smells reasonably like the truth. Yet the long Western struggle to view the world objectively is culturally unique. Especially in the Arab world, myth, comforting lies and cynical rumors trump facts that seem undeniable to us.

It makes things tough for our soldiers, who come from a Joe Friday, "just the facts, ma'am" civilization, yet must bring order to an Alice In Wonderland culture in which nothing is quite what it seems and things just grow "curiouser and curiouser."

Even in relatively "Western" countries, such as Russia or Greece, I've been astonished at the patently lunatic conspiracy theories to which even elites subscribe. Indeed, one of the many politically incorrect questions that needs to be asked is simply this: Is there a direct correlation between our appetite for accurate data and the success of American civilization? The answer seems obvious, but don't try raising that question at Columbia.

Iraq has no tradition of rational inquiry. On the contrary, regimes predating Saddam's by centuries ruled by relying on fear, corrupted faith and mumbo-jumbo. Despite its secular, pseudo-scientific trappings, the Ba-athist regime disdained objective analysis. The truth didn't set anyone free. It earned them a cell or a bullet.

The people of Iraq and their neighbors never acquired the rigorous mental skills necessary to separate appealing delusions from concrete reality. The flight into fantasy serves as a psychological refuge: If Arabs live in failure and poverty, it's because someone else conspired against them, whether Americans, Israelis or the Mongols.

And, sometimes, the rumors in an information-starved society such as Iraq's under Saddam were far more accurate than the line broadcast by the government. The people have been conditioned to skepticism.

Thus, when Paul Bremer claims in good faith that we hope to return Iraq to its citizens as swiftly as possible, Iraqis hear the words as they have always heard official pronouncements: with cynicism and suspicion.

Another aspect of this deficient realism worked against us in the first days of the occupation and still troubles us today: Iraqis were disappointed that gold-plated manna failed to fall from the heavens immediately after the arrival of our troops. Their sense of America's wealth and capabilities had been formed by fabulous legends, by Hollywood films and by expectations exaggerated in the re-telling.

It seemed impossible to Iraqis that we couldn't bring electricity, clean water and winning lottery tickets to every one of them overnight. When services lagged or the lights failed to come on, it had to be a conspiracy. America, the all-powerful, could do whatever it wanted. Power shortages meant that America wanted to keep Iraq poor.

Aggravating this elementary distrust and lack of objectivity is the universal, still unexplained human tendency to find comfort in believing the worst.

If anything proves that we are not inherently rational beings, it's our hunger for bad news, for someone to blame, for believing evil of our neighbors. Rational beings would prefer to interpret events hopefully. Yet even Americans delight in hearing about a neighborhood scandal or believing that "something's going on" behind the scenes of the political stage (there is - a vast conspiracy of mediocrity).

Iraqi claims that we plan to convert them to Christianity or Judaism, that we scheme to corrupt their women or violate their holy shrines or simply that we intend to steal their oil, mirror the beliefs of our own ancestors that cities were stricken with plague because Jews poisoned the wells, that earthquakes meant the gods had indigestion or that Union soldiers would force the fair daughters of the Confederacy to marry liberated slaves.

We've come a long way, although our judgment remains far from perfect. Now we're asking Iraqis to make centuries of progress in a few years.

The Iraqis are frightened - not by our troops, but by change itself, by the collapse of the order they knew, no matter how vile its practices. Their world has been shattered and they truly do not know what we intend or what the future holds.

Turning on the electricity is a minor challenge compared to turning on the light of reason.

We need to recognize the routine difficulties facing our soldiers each day - not just the occasional rocket-propelled grenade, but the cultural divide between men and women born to freedom and facts, and those whose heritage is of subordination, evasion and lies.

Indeed, Iraqis not only don't trust us - they don't trust each other. The Middle East is the "Through the Looking-glass" version of our society. In the United States, we expect that the surface reflects what lies beneath. In the Arab world, surfaces are constructed to deceive, to deflect, to shield. The first story is never the real story. Promises are empty. And conspiracy theories overpower facts.

The situation in Iraq remains encouraging - a vast improvement over the recent past - but we need to acknowledge the society's demoralization. We are pioneering more than Arab democracy. We're attempting to spread a fact-based civilization, and those we mean to help may prove frustratingly obstinate. Humankind loves absolving lies.

We defeated Saddam. The danger now is that Iraqis will defeat themselves with fantasies.

Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer and the author of "Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World."

...and while you are speaking to perc's question, hobitbob, feel free to add in any thoughts regarding how America continues to whore itself for the big bucks even while - legs spread, floor littered with old condoms - it remains the most wonderful and innocent virgin in the history of mankind.

Tartarin

Robertson has 8 million invested in Liberian gold! Don't you just love that person/team at Harpers.

The question is, how are we going to have credibility on the reconstruction of Iraq when we can't even deal with out own energy problems? I think the blackout is in current Washington politics and the one turning the lights out is sitting in the Oval Office.

"just the facts, ma'am" which is what so many of us liberals ask of our government, of Bush et al, and yet what we hear from so many of our conservative friends, is just the opposite. those of us from the southeast asia experience are all too familiar with the willful lies and decepetions that stink from the rotting corpses of political agendas. before we ask for objective understanding from the people of Iraq/Afghanistan we need to have a bit more of that here at home.